In the Heat of the Dark Knight

Okay, I admit it…I love Batman. No, not in a, “I’m going to send him a dozen roses and slow dance with him under a silvery moon” kind of a way. Batman is simply my favorite superhero, in that he’s more or less a regular person...he’s not an alien, he doesn’t have any gamma ray induced powers…he’s a hero because he’s used personal tragedy as well as his vast reservoirs of courage and discipline to transform himself into the self-styled savior of Gotham City.
I would rank “Batman Begins” as one of my very favorite movies. It’s one of those rare films that works on every level…as an action-packed, visceral entertainment, as an epic human drama, as a tale of one man’s redemption and transformation. Consequently, I have been anticipating the sequel since the original came out in 2005.
I’ve done some reading on the internet about “The Dark Knight” the past few weeks. Much has been made about the blistering, hysterical, full-on performance of the late, lamented Heath Ledger as the Joker. There has been, in fact, a great deal of posthumous Oscar talk for him…I would daresay deservedly so. What’s interested me the most about all of the pre-release buzz are some of the early reviews that have trickled in. They are uniformly raves, of course, but a surprisingly high percentage of them reference Michael Mann’s 1995 crime thriller, “Heat”. Many reviewers are seeing “The Dark Knight” as less a superhero movie than an epic crime drama. Interesting.
I happen to have a copy of “Heat” on DVD so I pulled it out and watched it last night. For the uninitiated, “Heat” is the story of a professional thief, played by Robert DeNiro, at odds with a win-at-all-costs police detective, played by Al Pacino. There are surface similarities between the two films. DeNiro and Pacino’s characters are very much two sides of the same coin. Both are intelligent, driven, professional and passionate about what they do…so much so that each has sacrificed their personal life in order to be at the top of their respective games. For both men, their identities are wrapped up in their professions…sound like a billionaire playboy anyone knows? Also, both films are epic in scope and length (both clock in at well over two and a half hours).
Everything about “Heat” is first-rate, and I mean everything. The acting, the script and even the cinematography and music score are likely about as good as they could possibly be. “Heat” also has one of the best action scenes in recent cinema, a mid-day shootout in downtown Los Angeles that will (pun intended) blow you away.

Now, as for “The Dark Knight” itself…
I thought it was good. In fact, very good. I didn’t however, think it was a masterpiece, and I still favor “Batman Begins”. Don’t get me wrong, I thought it was head and shoulders over most movies I’ve seen of late. There’s much to recommend it…
Yes, Heath Ledger is amazing as the Joker. He somehow manages to be both frightening and hilarious, sometimes all at once. He truly disappears into the role. When you watch “The Dark Knight”, there is no Heath Ledger. There is simply the Joker.
Christian Bale is still the best incarnation of Batman. He has the acting ability to deal with some of the weighty themes the movie deals with, plus he absolutely nails the whole Bruce Wayne/ Batman duality.
The cast as a whole was excellent…Aaron Eckhart, Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman are some of the better actors out there, and they proved it once again.
There were some amazing action sequences (which I won’t detail, as I’m trying to keep this review spoiler-free) and even a few moments that had the audience clapping and cheering.

Now for the not-so-good…
I felt the movie as a whole was a bit overblown and loses its momentum not long after the two-hour mark. As much as the audience I saw it with enjoyed the film as a whole, I could detect some restlessness near the end. There was one sequence (the one in the harbor, for those that have seen it) that I thought was extraneous and brought the movie to screeching halt for awhile.
So all in all, I felt “The Dark Knight” was an excellent film…just not a great one.

A CAUTIONARY NOTE
Think long and hard about taking kids to see this film. It’s not unlikely “The Dark Knight”’s length and breadth would tax the attention spans of many youngsters. More to the point, some of the content might be kind of rough for kids. The appearance of the Two-Face character is pretty disturbing and really pushes the upper limits of the PG-13 rating.